Youth Service

The Department of Education invests in Youth Work to support and encourage children and young people as they mature and reach their potential as valued individuals and responsible citizens.  Youth Work is educational in the sense that it provides a social education within the context of a broad spectrum of diverse activity.  The policy aim of the Youth Service is:

• to ensure the provision of opportunities for children, young people and young adults to gain for themselves knowledge, skills and experience to reach their full potential as valued individuals; to encourage the development of mutual understanding and promote recognition of and respect for cultural diversity
• the Department is currently working on the Priorities for Youth which will be published for consultation in 2012. This new policy will seek to better align Youth Work to the key priorities for education and provide a clear sense of purpose and focus on the added value of Youth Work to the holistic education of young people.

Structure of the Youth Service

The Youth Service is composed of a voluntary sector and a statutory sector. The statutory sector is under the control of the Education and Library Boards and consists of a number of youth clubs and outdoor education centres, the voluntary sector is by far the larger sector and is composed of many different organisations.

There are approximately 152,000 young people who are registered participants in the Youth Service here.  There are almost 2000 registered youth service providers, the regular running of which is reliant on a workforce of 23,572, of whom 93% are volunteers.

Unformed organisations make up over 50% of the total number of youth units and account for 37% of the young people who participate in youth service activities on a regular basis.

(Source: A Statistical and Geographic Report of the Registered Youth Service in Northern Ireland 2010 Data Cycle: The Youth Council for Northern Ireland.)

The statutory provision for the youth service is contained in the Education and Libraries (Northern Ireland) Order 1986 and the Youth Service (Northern Ireland) Order 1989.

Functions of the Department of Education

The Department has overall responsibility for the Youth Service. Specific duties include:

• policy development for the Youth Service;

• governance and accountabliity of the Youth Council for Northern Ireland;

• governance and accountabliity of the five Education and Library Boards